I had to coax myself into posting this. Not because I didn’t want to do a post for #1000Speak, but because bullying is one of those things that everyone has been affected by, and I am no exception. It’s all a little close to the bone. Bullying is one of those universal topics that touches the lives of almost everyone. But I want to focus on the positive. On why being bullied made me a better writer. Without having been bullied I wouldn’t have focused on writing in my youth, and I probably wouldn’t have realised writing was my dream. So am I compassionate with the bullies? No, probably not, I know that’s the point of 1000speak, but, I am grateful for the experience of bullying.

But first – #1000speak is a  concept whereby, writers, bloggers, people, come together on a single day to speak about compassion. February 20th 2015 saw the first event, and today March 20th is the second, and this months topic is building on bullying. So I thought what better way to talk about it, than to consider what the experience of bullying did to my writing. Oddly enough, the more I thought about it, the more I realised just how significant of an effect it actually had. I think there are 5 key reasons bullying made me a better writer:

1. Bullying made me introspective – It might sound odd, but looking in on myself wasn’t something I was that bothered about until I was bullied.

When a bully picked up on a trait, or a fault, or a mannerism that perhaps I hadn’t paid much attention to, it made me overly self aware, and analytical. But that’s a good thing, not for the damage it did to my psyche or confidence, but for the mind set it put me in. As a writer and creator of characters I need to be able to analyse, deconstruct even: behaviour, people, traits, mannerisms, everything. I need an eye for detail that is so scrupulous a microbe couldn’t walk across my nose with me scrutinizing it. It’s how we writers create and develop characters so life like, so emotional we can captivate audiences. There’s always a baddie, a villain or antagonist, and what better place to draw characteristics from than your own personal bully?!

Bullies made me introspect, made me understand my own behaviour, reactions and emotional constructs, and that…that made me a better writer, and a better crafter of characters.

2. Bullies made me write – Ok, so not the novel or short story type of writing I’m doing now, but writing nonetheless. I started writing through journaling. I have dozens of journals filled with hours and hours of hand written tales of she said this, and he did that, just littering my loft. If I hadn’t have been bullied, I would never have needed to write, I would never have found my passion, and for that, I am grateful. We all need practice, and I had hours of it, and now, I can focus for hours writing my novel, just as I did writing journals years ago.

3. Bullying made me determined – There’s nothing like being beaten down, being crushed and broken, having every ounce of your personality torn to shreds to make you want to get straight back up again. To say ‘Fuck You, you think I’m odd, well, I know I am beautiful.’ The harder the bullies would push me down, the more determined I was to rise up again and fight, even if that meant weeping into my journal in private. Bullies made me a fighter, and I am proud of it.

Now I fight to write my novel, fight distraction, procrastination and time but most of all, I fight the self-doubt. They taught me I was determined, and now I know I can do it, No… I know I will do it. I will finish my novel. If it wasn’t for the determination they showed me I had, I might have given up by now.

4. Bullying showed me how strong I was – I wasn’t just bullied once or twice, I was bullied for years, nine of them to be precise. Nine long grueling years of bully based torture. And you know what, I wouldn’t change a single day of it, because it really has made me who I am. Every time I got beaten down, I got tougher, stronger, more resilient. Each time it was harder for them to hurt me. And each time they did hurt me, and I still got back up again, I knew I was stronger than them.

Writing can be grueling, writing a novel is a marathon and that takes strength. It takes strength to submit to competitions, agents and publishers and when you get rejected time and time again, it takes strength to stand up and try again.

5. Bullying showed me I could win. Win against cowards, and malicious back stabbing Queen Bees. Bullying showed me that every time I got hurt I could get back up. It could show me that a tiny bit of rebellion, standing back up, knocks a bully off their perch. It turns that chip onto their shoulder into a fullscale amputation. Bullying made me realise that if you want something bad enough, if you are determined enough, you get knocked down enough times and stand right back up, it will happen, you can win.  I know that, the experience of being knocked down, will help me when I get the inevitable trail of rejections from agents publishers and competition submissions. But you know what? I am going to stand right back up and try again, and one day I know I will win, I will finish my novel, and I will publish it.

***

I don’t often write poetry, but, in writing this post a phrase kept repeating in my mind. A phrase of the strong. So I just let the words flow and this is what came out of it…

Rise, Stand, Fight

No matter how many times you beat me with your jagged words,

wound me with your wicked ways, or tarnish my pure heart,

I will rise, I will stand and I will fight.

You can make my skin crawl with self-loathing,

make me doubt and judge myself,

but your dirty words all covered in hate are useless against my strength,

I will rise, I will stand and I will fight.

Your beatings, torture and abuse have marked my soul with shadows,

But scars are tougher than skin,

and that makes me tougher than you.

You can push me over, knock me down and crush me with your might,

But, I will rise, I will stand and I will fight.

The post 5 Reasons Bullying Made Me A Better Writer #1000Speak – Building On Bullying appeared first on Sacha Black.

My aim here, is to see if I can convince you to get up close and personal with your own inner psycho…

Have you ever watched Dexter? If you haven’t, you should. It’s great, Wiki says:

‘Dexter is an American television drama series. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.’ 

A rubbish blurb if you ask me it doesn’t give half the detail of Dexter’s utter brilliance. Dexter is a psychopath. Not a sociopath as lots of people would lead you to believe. Sociopathy has a biological element, i.e. you are born like it. Dexter witnessed the murder of his mother as a wee laddie and it scarred him into emotional apathy hence, he developed psychopathy.

The interesting thing with Dexter is that although he can’t quite feel emotion, he wants to. He doesn’t want to kill people, he wants to be good and a nice person, but his ‘dark passenger’ doesn’t let him, he gets these urges to kill, so his adoptive father teaches him how to kill and get away with it, but he is only allowed to kill people that adhere to the ‘code’ i.e. a very bad person who escaped from the police.

What does this have to do with your own personal inner psycho, and more to the point, why can it make you a better writer?

Well, the writers of Dexter literally torture him, and torture us by torturing him. Throughout the 8 seasons, Dexter teases us with ‘almost emotions.’ For example, Dexter gets a girlfriend and eventual wife (Rita) who fully believes that Dexter is in love with her, so much so they have a child together. What is magical about this series and why I am writing this, is the extraordinary juxtaposition this creates: Dexter’s is unable to feel emotion, yet he strives for a normal life and indeed grows fond of Rita, and their son Harrison who he would protect with his life.

The lesson I have learnt from Dexter is just how important it is to torture your characters, and in every way possible. If you torture your characters your viewers or readers feel even more for them. I felt tortured with Dexter as I watched.

Emotional Torture:

Dexter is put under some extremely emotional torture throughout the series. For example, he tries to live a normal life, and have disguise – which involves Rita, but actually, he ends up being extremely fond of her, and they get married and have a child. We watch as he wrestles with himself and his own inner turmoil trying to work out if he does actually feel anything, whilst knowing he wants to spend time with them and be with them, not something he is used to. So when we see Dexter finally attain what he has been striving for – some semblance of normality and a sense of love. It is ripped away as Rita is brutally murdered which = Dexter emotionally tortured. Utter brilliance. I cried, a lot.

But the important lesson here is he was tortured. I felt for him, and as a result it gave him a ton of depth as a character. Here are the main ways Dexter was tortured, and the elements I think you should include in your stories to help readers feel for your characters:

Mental Torture:

Dexter constantly has to hide who he is, his murders and all the shenanigans he is up to. In one of the series there is another killer ‘The Ice Truck Killer’ who threatens to expose his whole life, he works out who he is – his real brother who he was separated from as a child, and this brother dates his adoptive sister. The torture Dexter has to go through juggling all the balls and trying to prevent his sister from being murdered leaves him exhausted, exposed and vulnerable, and quite frankly, me on the edge of my seat.

Physical Torture: 

Not always appropriate granted it will depend on your novel, BUT, there are some things you could do – say for example you are writing a chick flick book you can still physically torture your character. If they had a long journey to take, you could make it physically demanding, put obstacles in the way, make it exhausting for them. Dexter was beaten and tortured on a number of occasions through out the show, every occasion only serving to make us feel even more sorry for him, but then it was appropriate to the show and also kind of karma for him. The interesting thing is, despite the number of murders he had committed we empathise with him and completely excuse his murderous behaviour, quite worrying really!

Moral Torture: 

This was perhaps on a par with emotional torture for being the best method to get me on the edge of my seat. Despite being a psychopath and a killer, Dexter had morals. And lots of them. He lived his life strictly by ‘the code’ which his dad gave him. He would only kill certain people if they met the code, but throughout the series we watch as people who don’t match the code push him, and threaten to expose him, making him test his morals and everything he believes in, because if he went against his code then he would just be some common murderer. It’s his moral code that makes him interesting and unique, and what drives the viewer to see what he will do, how far does he have to be pushed before he will break his code? Who would he break the code for?

It’s a fascinating case study and if you haven’t watched it, honestly you should. But what’s the point I am actually trying to make?

Torture your characters… Get up close and personal with your own inner bit of psycho in order to create strange and nasty methods for torturing your characters, it will only serve to make us readers turn every page until the book is finished. Use the types of torture above, obviously you don’t need to use them all, and obviously not all at once, or  not even all in the same story. In fact it is probably better not to. But do use some of them. Push your characters to their limits, make them have to work hard for their goals and it naturally brings their character to life, gives them layers, texture and grit and importantly creates something the readers to enjoy.

My question to you is:

What’s your inner psychos preferred method of torture?

I think my psychos preference is for moral and emotional torture, I love a bit of moral torture to really test your characters fibre. How far can you push them before its too far?  Can you crush them? How far is too far? What would make them break? My inner psycho is going nuts thinking about how I can torture my characters next, and also about timing it just right, right when they think they are plain sailing… boom!

I would love to hear from you…What’s your inner psychos preferred method of torture?

The post The Dexter Effect – How to use your inner 'Psycho' to write better – The Crafting Characters Series #5 appeared first on Sacha Black.